My Favorite Things: My Public Library

Libraries.

I LOVE libraries. Here's the first library I remember loving. The Ripon Public Library in Ripon, Wisconsin. Yes, it was a Carnegie Library.

(If the photo isn't appearing, go here.)

I would get lost in that library for hours. Once, when I was 7 or 8, I heard the librarian answer the phone, and then heard her say, "No, she's not here anymore". I knew it was my mom, I knew I was missing dinner (or doing the dishes) and I stayed anyway. It was one of the best hideaways in Ripon at the time, and there were many.

The lower left window? That's where the young adult fiction lived, along with my favorite book at the time, The Black Opal by Dorothy Maywood Brown. That book took me so far away from that small town. I loved that book.

The designation as the first public library in the English-speaking world is claimed by Chetham's Library in Manchester, England. It was, and still is, predominantly a reference library, which means you won't find Lisa Scottoline's most recent books there.

The first library in the US - The Library Company was founded in Philadelphia in 1731, by Benjamin Franklin, of course. The first FREE library in the United States was founded over a century later, in 1833 in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

I'm getting all library-geeky on you. If you're as geeky as I am, here's a nice online exhibition about the history of libraries in the US, courtesy of the Digital Public Library of America.

Here are some of the ways I use my current public library (Ludington Library, which you can see in the photo below):

- ordering scripts and musical scores through the Interlibrary Loan service.
- borrowing books, recordings and videos through TWO digital apps.
- borrowing cake pans. Yes. My library has cake pans.
- meeting my Spanish tutor at the Porch, a zippy, informal meeting space at Ludington.
- wandering into the back of the library and losing myself in writing or reading.

I'm not a person who complains about paying taxes, and my love of public libraries is a part of that. Because most public libraries in the US are funded, at least in part, by local taxes, they are a fine example of all of us contributing to create a resource that is of immense value to the entire community. A public library welcomes everyone - rich, poor, young, old, doesn't matter. We all benefit. Just think about how much money you can personally save if you use your public library.

If you don't have a library card, the most creative task you can do today is to get one. Worlds you never imagined will open up to you through your public library. Perhaps that card will become one of your favorite things, just like it is for me.

Another invaluable taxpayer-funded space,
the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge